


move me, baby

by ImSoSupernova



Category: SKAM Austin
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18455408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImSoSupernova/pseuds/ImSoSupernova
Summary: Frustrated and alone after her humiliating encounter with Megan, Shay meets a mysterious and cool new girl.





	move me, baby

**Author's Note:**

> I have a history project, a math project, and a biology test all happening this week, and I did this instead. Enjoy!!

Shay sinks against the brick of the building and closes her eyes. She still feels the outline of the words she’s just spoken to Tyler and Nic on her tongue-- _ It’s okay. Really. I’m over it. I’m fine. _

Except she’s  _ not  _ over it. She’s  _ not  _ fine. And now she’s stuck sitting outside, while her friends go and rejoin the party and have fun, drink and smoke and kiss boys and girls and don’t give a fuck about which goes with which, or who sees them. She’d give anything to be so carefree.

But for now she’s out here alone, waiting for who knows what, feeling the ghost of the girl’s lips against hers, the pressure and the taste of the liquor and laughter that stained her tongue, and the wall thudding with the bass of the music, to the same rhythm as her thoughts.  _ Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. _

“Fuck,” Shay says to herself, and scuffs her sneakers against the ground.

“Excuse me?” says a voice to her left, and Shay nearly jumps out of her skin.

“Sorry!” she yelps. Then, trying to collect herself, reassume her cool persona, she says, “I didn’t know there was anyone there.”

She hears a laugh. “Don’t worry,” the voice says. “I haven’t been here long.”

Shay finally turns to look and see who’s talking to her. She hears the flicking of a lighter and the spark of a flame, and under the dim lights outside the club Shay sees a Black girl about her age. Hair buzzed close to her head. Wire-rimmed glasses that glint in the faint light. Overalls, combat boots. And holding what is unmistakably a just-lit joint to her lips.

For the millionth time that night, Shay is speechless, but for the first time that night, it’s in a good way. 

“I’m Shay,” she says, because it’s the only thing she can think to say.

“I know.” The girl grins at her. “I’m Rhea. Want some?” She holds the joint out. Shay sees that the nails on each of her middle fingers are painted neon green.

Shay glances at her. It’s probably after midnight, she’s just been forcibly kissed by her drunk (sort of) former crush, and now she’s being offered weed by a hot stranger.  _ Why the fuck not. _ “Why the fuck not?” Shay takes a drag, and the familiar burn of the smoke in her lungs grounds her a little. She’s able to breath for a moment.

Rhea moves a bit closer to Shay as she takes the joint back. The two of them lean against the wall for a few minutes, just smoking and listening to the reverberations of the music inside. Finally, the silence becomes a bit too much, and that gives Shay the courage to ask Rhea, “So, you know who I am?”

Rhea laughs. “Of course. Shay Dixon. Clout From Grandma’s Closet. I’ve seen you perform a few times. Your single was sick, but I have a few thoughts.”

Shay laughs in surprise. “Always glad to meet a fan, but you have  _ thoughts?  _ We’re not really taking constructive criticism right now.”

“Fair, fair.” Rhea shrugs. “I’d just like to hear more of you, that’s all. Your rapping is something special.”

Shay’s glad it’s dark enough to hide her blush. She doesn’t know how to respond, so she just blows out more smoke. 

“So,” Rhea says, after another moment of silence. “What are you doing out here? You and your band, I’d expect you to be rocking this place.” The question’s innocent enough, but her eyes are searching, and Shay knows that she’s looking for more than a simple answer.

She feels that sinking in her stomach again. “We weren’t asked to perform,” she says quietly. And then, because she knows it’s more than just a simple question, she adds, “things in there are a bit fucked up right now.”

Rhea doesn’t push her to say more. She just nods. “I know the feeling.” The joint’s pretty much burned out, and she stubs it against the wall.

Shay wraps her jacket around her shoulders. Everything around her’s gone a bit hazy, a bit soft around the edges. A bit different. All except Rhea’s face, which stands out so clearly against the dim, winking lights.

She’s not sure what to do now. All she knows is she doesn’t want to go home.

Rhea pulls out her phone and glances at the screen. Then she turns to Shay again. “Wanna get out of here?”

 

The place that Rhea takes her is familiar, Shay’s certain she’s performed here before. A dilapidated basement in some abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, surely a broken, sad heap during the day. But at night, it’s filled with people and music, and Shay makes her way into the thick of it, faces swirling around her, laughter and cheering and singing, drums and guitar and heavy, heavy base, she feels a moment of peace. This is her world. It’s her home.

Rhea grabs her hand and moves Shay through the crowd, pushing and shouldering her way through the bodies of people until they’re right at the center of it all, in front of the stage. The band begins to play their next song, and it’s a fast and driving beat. And Shay gets lost in the press of bodies around her, the push and pull of the crowd as she falls in. It’s exactly what she’s needed this whole time, to kick and to punch and scream and let everything loose for once in her life. To shout a big  _ FUCK YOU  _ to the entire world, or at least all of Bouldin High School. And to have a handsome girl nearby, pressing and releasing with her and everyone around them. Their bodies pushed towards each other, more than once. 

The songs melt together. The lights melt together. The people melt together. The minutes blur, and world turns at a different speed. And in that moment, which both is and isn’t truly one moment, but a series of moments strung together, stretching out beyond the usual bounds of space and time, Shay sees Rhea, and Rhea is looking at Shay. And they can both feel it, the way that the Earth shakes for them, the specialness of it all. And they both lean in.

And for the second time that night, Shay feels a girl press her lips against hers, but for the first time that night, Shay kisses back. Shay leans in, and Shay melts against Rhea, against this girl who is kissing her because she wants to, because she likes girls too, and it’s not some sick joke to her. Against this girl who likes Shay for  _ Shay.  _

For the first time in Shay’s life, kissing feels  _ right.  _

And they don’t stop. They stay together, an island in the mosh pit, the two of them learning how each other’s hearts can race, breath can gasp. How the two of them move, together, against the world.

And eventually the gig breaks up and they find each other outside, Shay’s back pressed against the old wall of this rundown building, and Rhea holding her body in her hands. The two of them, together, sharing these moments when time runs into infinity.

In that night in Austin, Shay and Rhea are the only two people in the world.

 

Shay wakes up the next morning, convinced that the entire night has been a dream. Her head is fuzzy, and her throat is dry. She reaches up, absentmindedly, to touch her lips.

Then she sees it, on her hand. Too faded by sweat and maybe a shower and a shaky hand to fully make out, but Shay knows what it is. A phone number, scrawled haphazardly in the heat of the moment. 

It was all real.

Her phone buzzes and she jumps to see what it says. Her heart sinks when she realizes it’s just a text from Tyler.

 

**Tyler:** sorry to leave you. everything ok after last night?

 

A mysterious girl, a half-washed number. And just a first name-- _ Rhea.  _

Shay has no idea if she’ll ever be able to see her again. All she can do, she supposes, is hope. But suddenly, that option doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

She texts Tyler back:

 

**Shay:** it will be.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on tumblr @ bicrissoto


End file.
